The questions behind a building's next chapter

In 2020, we prepared an initial €22.2 million refurbishment programme across seven occupied properties covering approximately 96,000 square metres. The initial eighteen-month sequence concentrated work into periods that suited procurement and construction efficiency. Several tenants explained that the proposed access and disruption would interfere with important operating activities. The project team believed a longer programme would add cost and increase the number of interfaces to manage. Both positions reflected a real consequence of the choice.

I asked the asset and project teams to develop a thirty-month alternative, with tenant operating needs included before the sequence was fixed. Qualified specialists retained responsibility for technical methods and safe execution. The revised plan added €1.8 million in preliminaries and coordination expenditure, bringing the approved programme to €24 million. I accepted that cost rather than present reduced disruption as a benefit available without a commercial sacrifice. The board received the longer timetable and the additional expense together.

The programme was completed under that phased approach. Six of eight anchor tenants whose leases came up for decision renewed; two left. We did not attribute all six renewals to the works, because rent, business conditions and location also affected their decisions. Metered purchased energy across the reviewed properties was 21% lower in the subsequent comparison period, with occupancy and weather differences limiting the conclusion. We did not turn that observation into a verified carbon result.

The outcome was a workable refurbishment sequence with an acknowledged cost, not universal tenant retention or a disruption-free project. Some occupiers still found particular phases difficult, and their feedback changed later coordination. I learnt that involving tenants early has value only if management is willing to alter the programme when their evidence warrants it. Consultation that leaves the original sequence untouched can create the appearance of consideration without changing the experience inside the building.

Looking back, I would put tenant access constraints into the first programme discussion, before a completion date starts shaping expectations that occupied buildings cannot reasonably meet.

A 24,000-square-metre office property acquired for repositioning presented two broad options: extensive demolition and replacement, or a conversion retaining much of the existing structure. The initial reuse proposal was attractive, but several design assumptions required specialist assessment. I asked the team to establish which structural areas could support the intended use and which constraints would affect services, circulation and the lettable offer. The decision was made through the appropriate professional reviews, not through a general preference for retaining old fabric.

We approved a €28 million conversion that retained approximately 70% of the existing structural area. During the works, additional interventions and coordination requirements raised final expenditure to €29.4 million and delayed completion by three months. The project team wanted the public account to focus on the retained structure. I agreed that retention mattered, but required the budget and programme changes to remain part of the result.

Twelve months after completion, 86% of the lettable space was leased. That figure described signed occupation commitments at the review date, not cash profitability, full occupancy or recovery of the conversion investment. The remaining space needed further commercial work. We also avoided a numerical embodied-carbon claim because the published case did not contain a separately reviewed assessment supporting one. The physical retention figure could stand on its own without carrying a broader environmental conclusion.

The project gave the property a new commercial purpose while demonstrating the limits of our early scope assumptions. I asked for those differences to be carried into subsequent conversion reviews, including the allowance for investigation before approval. Reuse should be examined seriously, but it should not become an attractive label that protects a project from ordinary scrutiny. An owner needs to know both what was preserved and what the chosen route ultimately required in money, time and leasing effort.

In 2022, our treasury review showed €180 million of borrowing falling due within a nine-month period. The associated properties had different lease and refurbishment schedules, but the debt calendar concentrated the need for a market transaction. Finance colleagues could show that retaining the existing arrangements was cheaper in the immediate comparison. I asked them to examine the cost of spreading maturities before the concentrated period arrived, including fees, covenants and the implications for asset flexibility.

We worked through the alternatives with our finance team and appointed advisers. The selected arrangement replaced the concentrated maturities with three-, five- and seven-year terms. Its weighted coupon was 0.65 percentage points higher, equivalent to an annualised €1.17 million increase in interest on the stated principal before fees and other terms. I kept that additional expense visible when recommending the change. It was the price of a different funding profile, not evidence of improved operating profitability.

Some owners preferred the lower current cost and believed the portfolio's quality would make later refinancing straightforward. I did not argue that a funding problem was inevitable. My recommendation concerned the consequence of having several important decisions depend on the same narrow period. The board accepted the more distributed calendar while retaining separate scrutiny of each property's underlying business plan.

The result reduced maturity concentration. It did not remove interest-rate exposure, refinancing risk or the need to maintain credible asset performance. I would not use this case to recommend the same financing structure to another owner without its circumstances. The lesson for our enterprise was that the cost of flexibility should be discussed before a deadline makes the choice less voluntary. We now review the debt calendar alongside major lease events and capital works, so that funding and operating commitments are not assessed in separate conversations.

During 2019, a review of eighteen refurbishment contracts showed that payment after certification took a median of fifty-four days. The contractual and administrative position differed between projects, but repeated internal handovers were delaying several approved payments. Contractors raised the issue with site teams, who had little influence over the central process. Procurement was concerned that a faster routine would reduce control, while project managers were concerned about the effect on relationships and work planning.

I asked finance, procurement and projects to distinguish the certification decision from the administrative steps that followed it. We retained the necessary approval and dispute controls, then removed duplicated requests for documents already held in the agreed record. The change applied to approved payments in the reviewed contracts; it did not mean accepting incomplete work or waiving legitimate questions about an invoice. Responsibility for unresolved items remained explicit.

Across the next comparable review period, median time from certification to payment fell from fifty-four to twenty-nine days. The earlier outflow required approximately €2.4 million more working capital at the measured peak. We did not claim that contractors returned an equivalent amount through lower tender prices, because that effect had not been established. The outcome was a more dependable payment process with a cost to our cash position, which the board could see.

The programme also clarified the source of delay. A project manager could identify whether an item awaited a substantive decision or was moving through an unnecessary administrative loop. That distinction reduced the tendency to blame another function without a useful explanation. I regarded the change as part of being a credible owner in a refurbishment market. It was not a statement that speed should outrank control, but a decision that a payment already approved should not be delayed merely because no team owned the whole journey to completion.

My change next time would be to examine contractor cash requirements when agreeing the work, so an approved payment does not become an avoidable financing problem later.

In 2024, we reviewed a property that had once housed the family's headquarters. It remained important to several owners, but its current use was limited and a proposed redevelopment would have required approximately €22 million of further capital. The asset team presented a new-use concept; some family members preferred to retain the building regardless of the immediate return. I asked for retention, conversion and sale to be examined as distinct ownership choices, with the funding consequence of each made clear.

The board agreed to test a sale while continuing to assess the conversion assumptions. The eventual offer was €46 million, compared with a recent €49 million appraisal. After €27 million of related debt repayment and approximately €1 million of transaction costs, the sale produced €18 million of net cash. I did not present the gross sale price as funds available for reinvestment or describe the unspent €22 million redevelopment concept as a realised saving.

The decision was emotionally difficult for some owners, and I did not treat that response as a failure to understand the numbers. The separate chair led the ownership discussion, while I provided the operating and capital recommendation. We documented the basis of approval and the reasons for accepting the offer below the appraisal. The transaction ended the company's ownership of that property and released management attention as well as cash, although the latter could not be quantified credibly.

The sale did not establish a rule that historically important assets should always be disposed of. It demonstrated a way to make the choice explicit. If the owners had preferred retention for reasons beyond the commercial case, the enterprise would still have needed to understand and fund that decision. My responsibility was to provide a complete account, respect the proper decision-maker and execute the outcome without pretending the property meant only one thing to everybody involved.

I would begin the conversation about family significance before presenting a disposal recommendation, giving owners time to separate the building’s history from the capital decision.